Chinese troops could train in Australia

Philip Wen and Mark Kenny

Beijing: Prime Minister Tony Abbott has foreshadowed closer military cooperation and joint military exercises with China, and revealed President Xi Jinping has accepted his invitation to address both houses of Australian parliament later this year.

Speaking in Beijing the morning after a state dinner and bilateral talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Mr Abbott said personal relationships at senior levels of government had been "very much been enhanced".

"We had a very warm and constructive discussion last night," he told reporters on Saturday, the last day of his week-long visit to Japan, South Korea and Japan. Mr Xi will visit Australia in November for bilateral meetings attached to his attendance at the G20 summit in Brisbane.

Mr Abbott said he was "quite confident" of building on current high-level meetings and exchanges with the world's largest army through the form of "multilateral exercises in the months and years ahead".

Chinese troops could end up exercising alongside the diggers in Australia’s north, perhaps even in conjunction with US Marines.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott raised the possibility in the final press conference of his north Asia trade trip in Beijing, declaring these issues had been ‘‘well and truly discussed’’.

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He said Australia’s already strong defence ties with Japan and South Korea had now strengthened further.

‘‘Here in China, as a result of this trip, I am now quite confident that we won’t just have high level meetings between our respective militaries,’’ he said.

‘‘We will have exchanges and exercises between our respective militaries and also multilateral exercises.’’

"That's got to be good for peace and understanding in our region and the wider world," he said.

Mr Abbott said he would not speculate on who else could be involved in exercises involving Chinese forces.

‘‘Thanks to the rotating elements of US Marines in Darwin, there’s potential for multilateral exercises in Australia involving the US,’’ he said.

When Australia and the US announced the program of training US troops in northern Australia in 2011, China expressed strong concerns.

Mr Abbott said that was then, not now, and the issue was not the troop rotation but that it had come as a surprise at the time.

‘‘Once people were fully aware of what was happening, the concerns fairly quickly dissipated,’’ he said.

Starting from a low base, Australian defence ties with China have expanded steadily in recent years.

Australian and Chinese defence leaders hold annual talks and Australian and Chinese warships have staged reciprocal port visits.

Australia already cooperates with New Zealand and China on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief drills, and the prime minister said that would be the foundation on which he hoped to build on, perhaps even involving United States marines based in Northern Australia.

“Thanks to the rotating elements of the US marines in Darwin, there’s potential for multilateral exercises in Australia involving the United States,” he said

Fairfax Media revealed last week that China's People's Liberation Army has asked to operate under Australian command in the US-led Rim of the Pacific maritime exercises, which will see the navies of more than 20 nations converge around Hawaii for warfare drills in July.

"Without going into specific detail, I express the hope and confidence that there can be greater and deeper involvement [from China] in the time ahead," Mr Abbott said.

The breakthrough in military relations follows close co-operation in the search for the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which is believed to have disappeared off the coast of Perth with 153 Chinese nationals on board.

China's state-run media outlets prominently reported Mr Abbott's meeting with Mr Xi, with reports of the Prime Minister's personal update on the search running as the lead item of official news agency Xinhua, as well as dominating the front page of a number of newspapers, including the English-language China Daily.

Mr Abbott said the push to strengthen military exchanges with China will go some way to ease the suspicion and tension with which the Chinese leadership eyes Australia's close military alliances with Japan and the United States. Japan and Australia last week agreed to deepen its security alliance and share military technology.

"There's a clear understanding right around the region of the security relationships that we've got," he said.